A Difficult Life in an Unequal World

How to set out the primary source question
How to set out the primary source question

Research Options and Links

The Life of Peasants
The Life of Peasants
Norman Conquest
The Norman Conquest
Hundred Years War 2015
The Hundred Years War

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Life of Peasants

Primary Sources:

Dialogue between Master and Disciple, c.1000 | The Crede of Piers the Ploughman | Luttrell Psalter, British Library | Digital version of the Luttrell Psalter | Sample picture with description from the Luttrell Psalter

The Norman Conquest

Primary Sources:

William of Poitiers 1 | William of Poitiers 2 | Orderic Vitalis 1Orderic Vitalis 2 | Anglo-Saxon Chronicle | Several varied primary sources | William I’s final confession

Hundred Years War

Primary Sources:

Online Froissart | Froissart on the Battle of Crécy | Froissart on the Battle of Poitiers | The Trials of Joan of Arc | Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, Battle of Agincourt, 1415

Today’s class: 

7.5 minutes: Read through each assignment option and determine which one interests you most

12.5 minutes: Read through the section about the lives of peasants with all the gruesome details

20 minutes: Write the start of a historical novel in which a peasant character describes some aspects of his/her life, refers to a distant/oppressive/unpleasant lord or lady and ponders upon his/her rights (or lack of them). Your story may be haunting, funny, deeply philosophical or downright distressing – but it must be moderately authentic. Include dialogue and details of foul and repulsive jobs. 

Last 5 minutes: Upload your opus in a comment.

No wonder I felt so cold when I woke up. There was a small hole in the mud wall and the wind was whistling through it. I know exactly what my wife will say. “Didn’t I tell you to repair it last week?”

Dear S2Z,

During our last class, one of the deep-thinking philosophers in the class (I think it was Harry) asked me about why there is so much inequality in the world, why hierarchies thrive and prevail, even in the most democratic societies, and why, even when everyone has a right to an education, as in Western countries, the differences between rich and poor, powerful and relatively powerless, still abound. Indeed, the gulf between rich and poor appears, if anything, to be becoming more and more pronounced.

Like many questions in history, there is no simple answer, but it struck me as a probing, fundamental question. In fact, it reminded me of the question that Yali asked Jared Diamond many years ago: “How come you white men have so much cargo?” Struck by this question, Diamond began to trace the roots of the inequalities that exist between the Western powers and other parts of the world and developed a fascinating theory.

But what about the inequalities that exist within each society? What causes them? Why is it that, once we stopped hunting and gathering, our societies took on that hierarchical tendency, usually with a large, subjugated class and a small privileged one? Why is it that revolutions and rebellions seem to replace one hierarchy with another? 

Medieval peasants, who spent their lives in grinding toil, are a prime example of this hierarchical tendency. As we study their lives, I hope we will be able to contemplate possible answers to Harry’s profound question. You may like to begin this discussion by reading the links below and formulating your own preliminary ideas on this intriguing question.

Kind regards, Ms Green

Some reading about equality and status hierarchies:

One sack of grain might yield, after taxes and setting aside grain for the following year, about 2.2 sacks. All that work, so little gain.
One sack of grain might yield, after taxes and setting aside grain for the following year, about 2.2 sacks. All that work, so little gain.

BBC Website: A Summary of Peasants’ Lives (and a Test)

Luttrell Psalter

A Scene from the Beautiful Luttrell Psalter

 

Seedman copyright free from retrokat.com medieval clipart

Image kindly provided by http://retrokat.com/medieval

Even in such a lowly group as the peasants, who made up the bottom 90 per cent of the population, there were variations in status. Some were free and some were serfs. A serf was like a slave but not quite a slave.

According to the Shorter Oxford, a serf was “a person in a condition of servitude or modified slavery”. Even though the powers of the master were “more or less limited by law or custom”, in reality the master had great power, if he chose to wield it.

Servitude meant that the serfs were subject to the will of the lord of the manor; they could not leave the manor without his permission. They were subjugated, they were poor, they were often hungry; to get through each year would have required unimaginable struggle, grinding toil and a fair bit of luck.

Medieval face from http retrokat.com medievalHunger was a constant danger, starvation a real possibility. According to Lacey and Danziger, the writers of The Year 1000: What Life was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, July in England was the toughest month. The spring crops had not yet matured; the midsummer harvest produced hay for the animals and nothing for the humans. This time was referred to as “the hungry gap”.

Yet some aspects of the peasants’ lifestyle were healthy. They had a very healthy diet, if only they could get enough of it. They lived on a pottage (like a porridge) of grain and vegetables, into which they dipped the hard, coarse and often stale flat bread that they baked. No soft, fluffy bread for them: their bread was a little like a pita bread or nan, but tougher and coarser. The pottage served to soften the hard, stale bread and make it edible. The bread was also used as an edible plate, called a “trencher”.

DETAIL october tilling and sowing pd about.com calendar page of Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de BerryA detail from the beautiful 15th century Book of Hours (in the public domain) called Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. This shows October – tilling and sowing.

One of the healthiest aspects of their diet was that they had no sugar. Until the 17th century, when sugar was brought back from the Caribbean, no one in England had sugar. Honey was so precious that it was sometimes used as a currency. The positive aspect of a life without sugar is that the people at that time experienced almost no dental or jaw decay. The skeletal remains of the Anglo-Saxons in the year 1000 show that they were surprisingly tall, with excellent teeth.

Below are some extra details about their lives, with some websites for you to explore. Glance through them, then work through the summary of peasant life at the BBC Website at the top of this post and complete the little test. Try to work like bonded labourers, even though you live in the modern world and have far more rights than the serfs of the Middle Ages.

Kind regards,

Ms Green

Did you know…?

  • Medieval peasants worked long hours, produced most of the food and paid most of the taxes. If you want justice, don’t expect to find it in the medieval world.
  • Peasants’ cottages had dirt floors and walls made of mud, cow dung and straw. There was no glass in their windows and their animals often lived with them.
  • Fleas were common. People expected to have them.
  • Many peasants died in the winter from hypothermia.
  • Outer clothes were rarely washed but wood smoke acted as a kind of deodorant.
  • It has been estimated that 20% of women died in childbirth. Infant mortality was also high.

CLICK ON THESE SITES TO DISCOVER MORE…

Peasant life and housing with pictures of cruckhouses: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/medieval_peasants.htm

A famous and beautiful illuminated manuscript:

The Luttrell Psalter and its depiction of peasant life

Worst Jobs in History: Building a wattle and daub cottage

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44 Replies to “A Difficult Life in an Unequal World”

  1. “Sire, I wish for a raise.”
    “I will not lift a filthy rag like you. I shall bathe in a week or so.”
    “No, my Lord, a raise as in I would like a bit of money in return for my labour.”
    “What work do you actually do, peasant?”
    “I’m a serf, Sire. I work in the fields, sowing and harvesting. But when the fields can’t be worked, I work with the cows and horses.”
    “You graze amongst the cows and horses!? What kind of being are you?”
    “My Lord, please, back to the topic at hand.”
    “I told you before, I will not lift you up at all.”
    “Yes, I understand, but I’m afraid you don’t. My fellow serfs are slowly dying so I propose that you give me some money for my work.”
    “I forbid my serfs to die without my permission. Go along and tell them that.”
    “You can’t do that, my Lord.”
    “You’ll see what I can do. For your raise, the answer is no and it will always be no.”
    “Yes, Sire…”

  2. Why live?

    I can’t live without dreading that life could end today. Who knows what will happen to me, except those above me? Maybe a horde of horses, mounted men and bloody swords will swoop upon my hut, or what is left of it.

    I can’t sleep without little icicles forming on my fingertips. I wake up, take what little clothing I have, and head out to the farms without any food, even though I supply it all to the village.

    My life doesn’t seem to be fair compared to the others. Occasionally I dream of what life would be like if I were at the other end of the scale, up as a king. But why dream?

    Serfdom has been in my family for generations, and it’s part of our ways now, but there will always be a part of me that will want to explore further than my hut boundaries, without the risk of punishment.

    I want to live.

    Only if there is still something worth living for.

  3. Ulrich Ayleth- Journal Entry 1/1/1000
    The year 1000 has at last sprung into our small kingdom. Jolly! Small feasts were held and for once even we peasants had a chance to delve into the wonderful world of roast delights and boiled treats. Surely there was bad news to come though, I pondered to myself. And of course our lord had chosen the worst of times to ruin our party-going. By the wings of Jolly-Winkle’s horses! His smug grin flooded our tiny shanty-home with an aroma of filthy, rich grime. Despite this short-lived kindness, he hadn’t the faintest idea that we were hanging onto life by a thread; despite the luxurious feast (or what the lords would call afternoon tea), my stomach was grumbling with pain as I lay on my stack of hay, shivering from the chill which stabbed through our cracking walls.

    Who knew how long it would take for even my least prized possessions to be swept away by the plump arms of Lord Haverbröken, where they would simply be burned without consideration? His invisible mask of dismissive hatred was beginning to show more than it ever had before. Maybe I could run away to the nearby woods, I thought to myself, and live there with the astounding numbers of livestock. Surely the other farmers wouldn’t realise if a couple of chickens went missing every now and then. Of course, it wouldn’t be easy to survive in such areas, especially seeing that the King chose to rule over what is not even his land… or at least what is outside the kingdom. Perhaps escaping isn’t the best plan, after all, the king would be jolly sure to somehow mark us down. Oh, winklepip!

    Whatever was I to do with my wife and two children? I couldn’t live without saving them first. I could just lie here forever pondering on the many possible consequences of my future choices.

  4. I woke up in the cold, dark, stinky room. The wind whistled through the holes in the mud walls. The faint sunlight was filtering through them onto the filthy straw floor. I sighed as I imagined the gruelling day’s work. On top of the regular tasks, the grain tax to Lord Gaben was due. He never cared for his starving subjects, he just cared about money. I pulled myself together and lit the fire to prepare my breakfast: a thin gruel of oats and vegetables.

  5. Imagine spilling a deck of cards and having to regather them. Now change the deck of cards to pieces of grain, and it is not only 52 pieces of grains you have to pick up, but thousands more. Countless hours in the fields, where the sun blasts its heat onto you. The saddest part is that it’s impossible to be promoted from being a serf. The king is a lucky man: he sits on his throne, while I sit in his fields. At the end of the working day, I go back to my wattle and daub house.

    My house smells like rotten cheese, then again I do too.

  6. The sticky mud feels cold as I lift my dizzy head from my scratchy straw pillow. I wipe it off with my hands and then I realise, it’s not mud. I lift my sore body from the dirt ground and grab the bread I made the day before. It’s dry and hard but my stiff jaw still struggles it down. I grab a pail and I begin stumbling my way to the well for the start of another rough, long day. My back shudders from the cold air of the winter morning. The hunger gap was approaching fast and I wasn’t sure if I could make it through another one.

  7. NOVEL START

    Ah, the fresh breeze of daub in the mornin’, through the holes of me shelter and greetin’ me face. Lucky me, roof over me head and master to serve. Everythin’, from the chockin’ embers of last night’s meal to the sack of hay under me, s’all a joyful sight to me, nothin’ but a lowly serf. The openin’ on the opposite wall brings in rays of sunshine, even the slouchiest of them darn pigs gets off them lazy bones to see the gold rain down from ‘eaven. Me gets up, every crack in me back was but a mere nuisance. Me master is prob’ly waitin’.

    Crack of Dawn,
    Crack of me Back,
    Toil and Boil in the sun
    Tillin’ the Lawn,
    Carrin’ the Sack,
    Oil and Soil on me bum.

  8. Aberforth
    Red marks across my back, I try and ignore the pain. My lord whips me as I drop the sack of grain. It feels infinitely heavy even though it weighs just more than a 15 kilo weight. I found my life in shambles when I was sold into serfdom. My lord doesn’t even begin to treat me well. Like a dog that just bit his furniture. Furniture… I wish I owned something more than just the… I was going to say clothes on my back but… My master will only give me food and rags. I wouldn’t begin to classify my dreary rags as clothes. They look like digested cockroaches and they have so many holes it is hard to cover myself sometimes. I bend down to pick up the grains that have spilled. My lord has moved on to pick on another pitiful serf.
    I’m Aberforth and this is my life.

  9. Hunger
    Matilda sighed and looked dismally at the remains of her food. There would be at least another month before she and her husband, Reynard, could begin to harvest their crop, and even then they would have to wait until they had some spare time between tending to their lord’s land and sleeping from exhaustion. As it was, the food they had would barely last another 2 weeks, and they would receive little money in that time. Hopefully their chickens would begin laying again, as with a few extra eggs they would survive until harvest time…
    “Reynard, did the chickens lay yet? We’re almost out of food.” Reynard sighed and put his basket on the floor as he walked into their cottage. “I could only see one egg. It’s better than yesterday, but…” Matilda finished his sentence in her head grimly. She knew exactly what he was thinking, for as they were the thoughts that ran rampant every time her stomach gnawed with hunger, every time she thought of their dear daughter Elizabeth, lost last year from starvation, at barely 10 years old…

  10. I shivered. It was cold this morning, and my stomach groaned hungrily. My dad had already gone to work on the manor, although there wasn’t much work to do. The crops won’t be harvestable until next season, and my mum can’t fix the noises coming from my little sister’s tummy. A cold breeze rushed through the doorway of our wattle and daub cottage, and I shivered again. I spied a fox creeping through the thick underbrush to the left of our cottage and watched it spot a small animal and sneak up on it, ever silent.
    Work has been good for my dad since the disease. He was able to blackmail the lord into giving him more grain, but now there is no grain to harvest, and everyone is hungry.
    Another breeze washes across my skin, the hairs on my arms pricking up at the sudden change of temperature. I shiver again.
    And still I shiver.

  11. Rain. Clouds. Black ones. Hungry. No more grains.
    I pulled another empty sack towards the thatched roof and threw it out in dismay. A long and dreadful year, and another even worse just round the corner. A shirt that pulls on my skin, leaving horrendous red marks, and likely nothing left to wear next year. A pack of starving children, cheeks caved inwards and hair rotting with fleas, and a possible loss of yet another member next year.
    Staring at my rough hands, with scars that start from the tip of my fingers and trail painfully down to the link between my arm and my hand, I thought back to how the Lord had spoken to me yesterday, through a mouthful of poultry, making head-aching chewing noises that rang like church bells through my head all night long.
    He had said, without a flicker of concern, rather harshly too for that matter: “Serf, that land you and your family own…next to that Rowan and his family – right?” I remember numbly nodding, unable to look into the Lord’s eyes. “I see that the crop is going well, is it not?” Still I nodded in agreement. “Very well. Leave the crops in their places, I’ll arrange another square of land for you.”
    I had to speak up, though in my mind I knew that I’ll get a thud in the back. “My Lord, my family and I rely on that land. We cannot pay any taxes without that land. We cannot nurture our dying children. We cannot eat. We cannot-” But I was grabbed with force and thrown out of the Lord’s house, with a harsh kick into a mountain of manure. The tears that rolled silently down my face simply sank into the mass of rot, unnoticed by anyone or anything apart from that swirling mass of fleas, ready to sink their fangs into my weather-beaten skin.

  12. I could distinctly perceive the faint whistle of the icy wind which cut through the air sharply. My limbs felt like they were frozen – it was close to impossible for me to generate heat with the little clothing I had on. The children mirrored my actions, huddling close to each other in the weak attempt of creating warmth for their trembling figures. As serfs, we were not as well off as the lords above us – having a full meal a day was considered a miracle to me. I knew life wasn’t easy for people like us, but sometimes, I pray my lord to have mercy on my family and me.

  13. History Medieval Novel
    Mud. Dirt. Filth. Human and animal waste. All these things we were surrounded by, and the winter cold and summer humidity made conditions for my family and me unbearable. But we were used to it. Heck, we were lucky to have this much. A roof over our heads and a wall to assist in the battle against the elements were enough. However, hard work takes its toll after a long day working for the Lord of the manor. Nice guy, for a filthy rat. He makes us toil the day away, from dawn till dusk, punishing us if we slack from work and placing us in the stocks and pillory often for no reason at all. After that I have a distinct tomato taste in my mouth for days. But there’s nothing we can do. If we quit, we’ll get thrown out onto the streets and will probably die from disease, hunger, thirst, or something else in this unhygienic cesspit that is London. If we stage an uprising, we’ll almost certainly lose and be punished further. It’s unfair, unjust and undeserved, but it’s the way the hierarchy works here.

  14. “¡Déjame hablar! ¡Déjame hablar!” my father shouted in a sound as close to a shriek as I had ever heard. The soldiers were already approaching, I could see them streaming out from behind a mud-brick building near the end of the road. Some even went as far as drawing their swords.
    “Ser padre Tranquilo!” I screamed at the top of my voice, running out from the side of the Street, or trying to. Mother quickly grabbed hold of my shirt and pulled me back. What he was doing was stupid, this was a busy street full of Islamic soldiers and he was speaking out in the middle of it.
    “¡Déjame hablar! ¡Déjame hablar!”. He was demanding a voice, something that few here had.
    The soldiers rushed and gagged his mouth with an old rag. He was still screaming. Screaming forever. I still hear him screaming.

  15. I woke this morning when the pig started snorting in my face. We kept the animals in last night, to keep them warm, but they won’t stop digging up the floor and making holes in the mud walls. It’s almost as if they want the chilly air to get in. Their body heat can be nice though. And I suppose they are the reason we keep our jobs. But they could at least not wake me up two hours before dawn with their grunts and snores. I was planning to sleep in for another hour! They eat our breakfast too. What little pottage and bread we have they’re always stealing, as if they don’t have the entire day to eat and get fat. And no, I’m not talking about the “generous” and “noble” landlord. He gives as little as he’s allowed for what he takes, but he’s well above sleeping in the pig sty that is our hut. It’s literally made out of sticks, mud and cow poo. I reckon he should try it though. Give him a taste of the lives he forces us to live. It’s almost dawn now, so I’d better go and burn this so nobody tells him I’ve been writing such things about him. They would do that, you know, the other peasants. Even if I’m put in the stocks, it means that they might get more than a piece of stale bread for their work. I wouldn’t blame them.

  16. Waking up in the morning on a bed of straw to the smell of cow manure always reassures me that I haven’t died the night before from the cold. Knowing that you didn’t die from the blasting, chilling air seeping through the hole of the unfixed mud wall is always a relief. It’s winter and the animals aren’t making it any warmer for me. I sit up and get onto my feet and walk stiffly across to the dismantled table. I can’t afford to fix it, considering my few possessions. Sitting down on the splintered, faulty chair, I pick up a piece of stale bread that’s been left on a filthy and unwashed plate for days. My grimy hands pick a piece up and as I take a sparing bite of the hardened bread, I can see dirt, residue and soot hidden under my fingernails.

  17. I shivered in the corner of my hut, I could only just make out the action being mimicked by my children next to me. The animals inside did nothing to stifle the freezing cold. I could barely move, for the cold made my limbs stiff, yet as always, I would have to work for the Lord, else my family would be even worse off than they are now. I was due for payment, but I doubted it would come any time soon. I only hope that we make it to summer, but the kids are so feeble… I doubt the youngest will make it through the week.

  18. Upon the hill stood he,
    6 foot 7 and towering above,
    Hand on his 2 foot blade,
    He strode down the hill.

    Steel in his eyes,
    A fire in his soul,
    With a briskness in his stride
    He entered the room.

    Shrunk in terror they did,
    Hid in corners, shivering,
    Fearing the worst,
    As he brought out his cane.

  19. “A sinful desire, blood.”

    We were no better than a bunch of lambs, perhaps worse. Treated like the dirt of England, we were shoved around without a second thought. In the morning, the sun blazed on our skin and by evening, we felt a boulder balancing itself on our backs. Food was scarce as usual, with only a stale loaf of bread being served. Always the same routine, never changing. Unlike our master who fears death, we waited for it, wishing it would hurry and take us by surprise. This was the life of a serf. This was my life.

    When dawn broke, we, the serfs, would be finishing up and our master would always remind us to bring the animals into the barn. Although we lived in the part of England where there were no wild animals and all there was, was the glittery sky that shone above our heads. No clouds, not a chance of rain but still the same reminder. We do not question our orders, it’s an unspoken rule after all. Yet, here I was under a whirlpool of stars, defying my master’s wishes.

  20. The extremely dark but somehow still humorous account of a depraved [or do you mean deprived??] serf
    7:00- Work
    8:00- More work
    9:00- Even more work
    10:00- The word ‘work’ means nothing to me now
    11:00- You know when you say a word too many times
    12:00- It just sounds like garbage being dumped out of your mouth
    13:00- NO prizes for guessing…
    (Somehow my master finds extra hours in the day to torture me.)
    Relentless labour takes its toll on my slowly – no, actually very quickly – decaying body.
    The warts all over me may have something to do with the fact that I can never wash and am exposed to manure at least once a day, when those filthy animals get too deep in their own excretions.
    Filthy animals… I sound like I’m describing myself.
    I spend every day wondering how I’ll put food – or what my underprivileged children consider to be food – on the table.
    Then again, we don’t even own a table.

  21. I woke to light pouring down through the roof. I still hadn’t fixed it, for I simply didn’t have the means. I didn’t want to get up or even move. But I had to, because without working I would starve. I hauled myself up off the mud floor and stood up. I was hungry, starving but I knew I wouldn’t eat today. I couldn’t afford it. I could barely afford anything. Thanks to our lord I had nothing and still had to work from the break of dawn until it was too dark to work. I looked around my hut. It was dirty and tiny and yet it was all I had. I walked over to the door and stepped outside. I didn’t know it would be the last time.

  22. Dark cold nights startle me. I can’t get to sleep in this stinking house, made out of wattle and daub. At least I have a shelter. Tomorrow, I wonder if I’ll be able to get a decent meal from my lord. It has been torture ever since I started working under him. Will I be set free? Will I ever be able to gain a better place in the manor hierarchy? Working everyday in the soil is the worst place for a lady. I WANT TO LIVE A LUXURIOUS LIFE! I WANT A CLOAK, A CROWN AND ANYTHING I WISH FOR.

  23. “Steel in his eyes” and “fire in his soul”! That’s one intimidating lord, Michael! Very expressive and memorable. – Ms Green

  24. Well done, Jade. You have described the cold and the peasant’s despair convincingly. – Ms Green

  25. I’m sure you’d have been one of the peasants who later rebelled, Eloise. Well done!

  26. Thomas! This seems a little far away from a peasant’s life, but of course they did get caught up in gruesome battles and the conflict of the powerful. Very evocative!

  27. Sean, you have got straight to the point and summed up the situation neatly, though if you were in medieval London, you wouldn’t be a rural peasant. The taste of tomatoes also wouldn’t occur to you, since they would not have travelled to Europe from the Americas yet. Nevertheless, an entertaining story start with some strong wording; it is indeed true that London would have been an “unhygienic cesspit”, as you so tellingly describe it.

  28. An amusing, authentic and appealingly vulgar start to your novel, Harry! You can reach the heights of philosophical thought and also plumb the depths of common existence. In short, you are multi-talented.

  29. Well written and convincing, Victor. I liked your reference to the “hungry gap”.

  30. The social commentary is worked in very well, Fraser, and your description of your work as an endless deck of dropped cards is very effective.

  31. I slowly put down the hoe, and shivered from the cold. It had been a harsh winter, and I had a terrible cough, but of course I still had to work to support my family. The autumn harvest had been small; there had been a plague of rats in our barn, and by the time we’d managed to root them out, they had eaten over half our grain stock. My stomach rumbled, and I stared at it forlornly. “Not today, stomach…” I muttered. Was I really that far gone that I was talking to my own stomach? I supposed it was possible…

    apologies for the late posting, I was otherwise detained at this date

  32. Grace, I can well imagine that a peasant would have become very conscious of the rumblings of his or her stomach. A very convincing description. – Ms Green

  33. Very convincing, Ming. At the end there, I was waiting for you to write: “And an iPhone 7!” You have integrated your sense of social injustice well. – Ms Green

  34. This is a very bleak account, Liam! But it is convincingly written and I believe that a substantial number of peasants would have started their day with the same sense of despair. – Ms Green

  35. Ethan! This was cleverly written and quite amusing – until the end, when it became serious and depressing. Well done. – Ms Green

  36. Dheran – A very thoughtful and sensitive response! Convincingly written. – Ms Green

  37. Aaheli – Hmm, your lord doesn’t seem to appreciate your work or your political and social views, does he? I’m glad to see that you are the rebellious type. Well done. – Ms Green

  38. Hmm, you are a creative writer, Max – and a very rebellious peasant! Remarkable, how much you managed to write in the course of just one lesson! And you even managed to dream up the word “winklepip” and the name “Ulrich Ayleth”… Well done! – Ms Green

  39. My goodness, Emma, you have written a touching, beautifully expressed opening to your novel and also managed to work in many authentic details of the hardships peasants experienced. You’ve created convincing characters, brought them to life and made the reader hope, against hope, that they find another egg, that they can have a healthy child, that they can somehow overcome their grief and that their society becomes fairer and kinder… – Lovely work! – Ms Green

  40. You express yourself beautifully, Liam!.. “the faint sunlight”, “the gruelling day’s work”, “a thin gruel” – you already sound like a novelist. You have conveyed the daily struggle of a peasant poignantly. Well done. – Ms Green

  41. You’ve created the scene with great skill, Maaaattt. Every little detail contributes to the impact of your story, from the noises in your poor sister’s tummy to your own shivering. You’ve also managed to comment on the plague and its after-effects – and all in about one hundred words! Well done. – Ms Green

  42. In just a few words, Victoria, you’ve created empathy for the peasant and rage at his lord’s pitiless cruelty in your reader. This is a memorable scene. I love your opening, because the short, fragmentary phrases emphasise the peasant’s weakness, hunger and desperation. There are many effective phrases in your description too, such as the children’s hollow cheeks and the scarred hands of the peasant. Lovely writing! – Ms Green

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